RC:Decentralized UW - LT - Regional Legal Manager

About Rural Credit
The Retail Credit department in the Bank is a Credit Underwriting department for all retail products of the Bank. It is also responsible for ensuring the maintenance of a good portfolio quality and for ensuring smooth credit appraisal processes

About the Role
The Regional Legal Manager manages the Title Opinion, Project Approval (APF) and Vendor Management of the Retail Credit vertical for the designated geography. The Regional Legal Manager will be responsible for overseeing all legal aspects of retail lending, particularly focusing on property due diligence and contract management. This role requires a deep understanding of land/property laws, lending contracts, and retail legal procedures to mitigate risks and ensure compliance with banking regulations. The Regional Legal Manager will work closely with external lawyers, internal stakeholders, and other teams to ensure smooth legal processes in the bank's retail lending operations.

Key Responsibilities
•    Offer legal views on title of the underlying security in addition to title report by panel advocate, which may be necessary information for taking decisions on acceptance of collateral security.
•    Title due diligence of under construction projects based on legal report by panel advocate & further legal recommendations, including overall legal approval of the project under Advance Processing Facility (APF).
•    Review of sample legal reports to have quality check of reports with respect to title opinion, document due diligence, any special comments made by panel lawyers, and to ensure overall quality of legal search process.
•    Ensure that the title appraisal of properties is in line with Bank’s policies and processes.
•    Recommendation of deviation as per legal deviation matrix. 
•    Visits to CPC/ASC locations within the geography to resolve queries of Sales/Credit team of each location.
•    Regular interaction and engagement with panel lawyers across region to ascertain the market practices, legal positions, regulations, laws, notifications in force and apprise them of the vision and policies of the Bank.
•    Being aware about the regular updations and changes in laws as well as practices in important locations. Understand the challenges and competition practices and suggest relevant policy changes.
•    Training to Sales/Credit Teams about legal search processes and practices, and to keep them updated about recent developments in legal field.
•    Vendor Management including periodic review and training of vendors.
•    Adherence and Monitoring of TAT for project approval: reviewing and responding on the project within the specified time post receipt of legal report and complete set of documents.
•    Ensure overall risk mitigation with respect to collateral security, in order to minimize risk in lending exposure.

Qualifications
•    Graduation followed by Bachelor of Law (3 years).
•    Experience of 6 to 8 years in mortgages, legal due diligence and APF approval.
•    Efficiency in managing the team of at least 2-3 people in earlier role be advantage.

Role Proficiencies:
For successful execution of the job, the candidate should:
• Have knowledge of Mortgages, Property Due Diligence, Title Search, Land Acquisitions and Contract Management.
• Knowledge of Banking Regulations, Retail Lending and Property Acquisition Laws.
• Be well versed with local laws, notifications and practices related to mortgages, creation of mortgages, and properties.
• Be well versed with relevant documents, deeds and agreements which form part of title chain.
• Good communication (both verbal and written) skill in both English and the local language.